Hamilton Beach 40870 Stainless Steel 10-Cup Electric Kettle

It sits on a base; the base plugs into the wall. I fill it with water; the water heats up in minutes; the heating element automatically shuts off; the water inside the pot stays hot for an hour or so. Just what I wanted. Better, the pot lifts off of the base, so I can carry it to the table and set it down. Great purchase! I drink a lot of instant coffee and tea, and hate using a regular teapot on the stove because I have to be in the kitchen to turn off the stove when the whistle blows. Ten years or so ago I had a plastic electric kettle. But every good health article out there now says never to heat any food or beverage in plastic; this electric kettle is stainless steel. It even looks nice. UPDATE: About 3.5 years later, and it has died. I hit the switch to turn it on and the red light comes on, but very soon, the switch pops up and the red light goes out, and the water is never heated. I googled fixing it, and the general consensus is that unless you're an expert repairperson, don't risk an electrical fire by fixing it yourself. So I went into my Amazon orders, searched for the kettle to repurchase it, and WTH...what cost me $24.99 in December, 2012, costs $51.24 in June, 2016. Um, inflation hasn't doubled in 3.5 years. And I bought the same kettle for my sister in May, 2014, for $23.94. Both were bought from Amazon (I literally clicked on my own previous order to buy this one for my sister, because I liked it so much). This price increase is nuts! I'm not going to pay over $50.00 for a product I know, from experience, will last less than four years, and that cost half as much two years ago.

I got sick of running downstairs to the kitchen every time I wanted a cup of tea at the end of the day. Or, sometimes the middle of the night, as the Yogi Kava Stress Relief has become my go-to, non-drowsy-non-headachy-the-next-day, natural sleep aid. I have a small refrigerator in my bedroom, and I put this kettle with my teas on a silver tea tray on top of it. Perfect and convenient! I have really been trying to eliminate plastics in the kitchen/food storage area. It's almost impossible to completely avoid it, but I figure every little bit helps reduce contact with nasty, breast cancer causing chemicals. At the very least, eliminating hot beverages coming in contact with plastic is a no-brainer. The view window on the kettle is plastic, but somehow I think they've managed to keep the hot water out of contact with it. As nearly as I can tell, anyway. The inside of the kettle has a smooth, stainless steel plate covering where the handle is attached, which is where the view window is located. It seems as though a small amount of water is siphoned off to the view window area, but the main vessel where the water is hot is all stainless. They include a spout filter that is metal mesh and plastic, to reduce scale, but that pops out for cleaning and I just left it out. I use filtered water for tea anyway, so I don't anticipate a real scale issue. And as others have noted, the heating element is outside, making cleaning a snap. You also don't have to fit it just so when placing it on the element. There is just a small mound in the middle, which the hole in the kettle fits right over. I ran 3 kettles full of tap water through before my first pot that I drank, as per the directions, and there is NO discernible flavor! Yay! And I have a crazy-hyper sense of smell, so ANY off flavor is not going to pass my palate test! The cord is short, but I would assume that's a good thing. They recommend unplugging it when not in use. Yeah, umm, sure. They also recommend dumping the water out each time so the idle kettle remains empty, to reduce the advent of the dreaded scale monsters. Again, yeah...never gonna happen. The whole point of this contraption is to reduce my trips down to the kitchen, not increase them. If you don't use the kettle daily, you might not want to leave water just sitting there for days on end. But otherwise, I chalk these little recommendations up to the "CYA" portion of the legal-eze. If you wait for the kettle to complete it's full cycle, which includes a rolling boil, and the kettle then shutting itself off, it takes about 7-8 minutes filled to the "Max" line, with room temp-ish water. However, any self-respecting tea drinker knows that rolling boil is too hot for most teas. You can hear the water heating up, and when it starts to quiet down, I flip the switch off, and brew my tea. The first pot I made was at the FULL boil, and it was way too hot to drink, even if you had used it for instant coffee or Ramen noodles. The time to reach the hot-enough-to-make-a-beverage-but-not-scald-your-lips-off-your-face temperature is significantly less, about in the 3-4 minute range, though I haven't timed it exactly. LOVE the pour spout, by the way! It does NOT leak! And the handle is ergonomically positioned so as to not feel like it weighs a ton when full. Oh ya--like the other reviewer said--just put a finger or two on the lid when you pop the button open, and it won't fling water. It's not rocket science, but some seemed to struggle with this. All in all, I'm pleased so far (only been a few days) with this little kettle! If that should change with time, I'll update.

I've been living in EU for a couple years before moving back to the States a couple months ago. In EU the kettle are cheap, powerful and takes a minute or less to heat water. I'm talking kettles that costs $20 or less. After looking online, I found this to be one of the cheaper ones with a nice design and good reviews. So I decided to give it a try. My first impression was that the build wasn't too bad. After a few tries, I realized that it takes longer to boil water, compared the the European electric kettles. I have tried different kettles here in the States and they are slower in general. I don't know what it is, my hunch is the difference in voltage between EU and USA. That's just my theory, I have not idea how these things work from a technical standpoint. Anyway, it takes about a minute to boil water when it's half full, which isn't too bad. Another thing I noticed is the shape of the kettle, it isn't really well designed from a functional stand point. Yes, it looks pretty but you'll have to till it all the way to fully pour all the water out. The other issue I noticed is that it seemed like it leaked. This really pissed me off because I've only had it for a couple days. After some observation, I realized that it wasn't a leak. When pouring water, you'll have to be careful that it goes into the kettle. If a little bit of the water gets to the hinge of the lid, where the top of the handle is located, the water will sit in the hollow part of the handle. And when the kettle is sitting on its dock, it'll seem like the water is leaking. So that made me happy, knowing that it wasn't a leak, just bad design. So I had to just be careful when I poured water in. You might wonder why I'm giving this a 4 star after all of these issues. The reason is that it works, and I'm a very forgiving guy. I have been looking for a kettle that's under $40, that looks nice, and works, for over a month! I have had this kettle for 2 months now and it's going strong. No problems, no funny smell, no hiccups.

This kettle looks great that was why I bought it. but be warned don't go there. It's an American kettle made for there market don't work here. has american plug fitting and is only approx; 120 watt so totally not for our power system. They don't tell you that in the sales bumph; I learned the hard way had a plug fitted then it blew up when switched on well too many amps it couldn't cope with our electrics such a waste of money.